


(if not for you) rain would gather

by Polexia_Aphrodite



Category: Avengers, Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Rain, SHIELD Agent Darcy Lewis, the teeniest tiniest love triangle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:38:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polexia_Aphrodite/pseuds/Polexia_Aphrodite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’ve been partnered together for the past year, and somewhere along the way he let himself fall for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little romantic-y fluff that I decided to finish. I'm not sure what or why it is, but I hope you all like it. The title's from Bob Dylan's _If Not For You_.

Bucky and Darcy are only fifteen minutes into their walk from SHIELD Headquarters to Stark Tower when the heavens open up and an ungodly early-fall downpour commences. It’s only a few minutes before their clothes are soaked through, and Bucky’s boots are heavy with water.

Bucky hears Darcy mutter next to him. “I _told_ you we should have called a cab.”

Her hair is a damp, tangled mess; her glasses have completely fogged over. She scrunches her face and tries to wipe the rain out of her eyes with the damp sleeves of her sweater. 

It’s sick, he thinks, how the sight of her makes his heart clench. They’ve been partnered together for the past year, and somewhere along the way he let himself fall for her. 

He’d hated her before he loved her – hated how flighty she was, hated how she had to make stupid jokes about _everything_. But something about her – the toughness he didn’t expect, the thoughtful, kind looks she’d give him when he was low, and the fact that some of those stupid jokes _were_ actually kind of funny – took root in him. From there, from the tiny, dark corner of his heart that he’d allowed her, she’d spread out into every part of him – _metastasized_ , he’d thought, _like a cancer_ – until all he could see and think about and dream of was _her_.

For a while, he cursed her very presence – thought she was some kind of succubus or Delilah – someone to be tolerated and steadfastly held back at arm’s length. Someone who could make him weak.

But then, just a few months ago now, she’d been wounded in the field – taken a shot to the gut just a second before Bucky’d riddled her attacker with bullets. She’d whimpered his name and let him hold her in his lap until the SHIELD medics came – with his shirt fisted in her hands and his arms wrapped around her. He’d kissed her forehead and told her to keep breathing, and she’d nodded her head against his shoulder. Even though it had been her blood soaking them both, Bucky had felt like he was the one falling apart. 

He loves her so goddamn much.

Now, exposed in the cold and with their clothes soaked through, Bucky decides that he can’t let her keep going in this.

“C’mere,” he shouts at her, over the din of falling rain and thunder and traffic from the street next to them.

“What’s the matter, Barnes?” she yells back, “Are you startin’ to rust up? Should I get out my oil can?”

He rolls his eyes and grabs her hand. Somehow, while he was busy falling in love with her, he let her get a little too used to making fun of him. He pulls her under an overhang at the entrance to a closed, dark-windowed office building. They press their backs against cool glass. 

“We’re never going to make the rendez-vous now. This, _this_ ,” she holds up a finger to emphasize her point, “is why we never get the _good_ missions.”

Bucky sighs, tilting his head back against the wall behind him, and tells her about the whole stupid plan – that there is no rendez-vous, that it was his job to get her to Stark Tower for the surprise birthday party Tony, Pepper and Jane have been planning for weeks. Lying to get her this far had felt foreign and awkward, and he’s glad to come clean.

She shoots him a dry look. “My birthday’s not ‘til next week.”

Bucky shrugs and throws up his hands, “That’s what _I_ told ‘em.”

He explains the scheduling mix-up that spawned this harebrained idea – that Jane is flying to Oslo tomorrow and Fury’s sending he and Darcy to Atlanta next week.

Darcy rolls her eyes and shakes her head. The rain hammers at the awning above them; water drips from their sleeves and the hems of their jackets and pant legs. He can see that her hands are shaking and her teeth are chattering. He lifts an arm and jerks his head. 

“C’mon.”

Even though he invited it, it still surprises him how willingly she curls up against his chest, with her head on his shoulder and his flesh-and-bone arm around her. A part of him will never feel like he deserves this. He runs his hand up and down her arm vigorously, determined to convince them both that he’s just trying to warm her up.

Bucky’s heart sinks. Because, the truth is, he’s already decided that she’s not his to have. But there’s a part of him – _a sadistic part_ , he thinks – that wonders what she’d do if she knew the truth about _why_. 

“Steve’s gonna kill me for not gettin’ you there in time. Unless Jane gets ahold of me first.”

“Steve?”

Bucky shrugs. In his peripheral vision, he can see her looking up at him with wide eyes. Even though he’s the one who brought it up, even though he’s curious to know what her reaction will be, he doesn’t want to tell her, not really. He doesn’t want to tell her that he had been too wrapped up in himself to notice the longing looks Steve has been throwing her way. 

It’s torn him up since the moment Steve told him that he wanted Darcy – and what was he supposed to do? Tell him that he likes her, too? That he loves her? He’s only just allowed himself to even think it. Now, with her snug under his arm, with her little fingers picking at the loose threads on his jacket, he cringes at the thought of how willing he’s been to relinquish any hope he might have had. He’s been so eager for Steve to be happy, so quick to repay all his debts – and he owes Steve _so much_ – that he’d even give up _this_.

“He’s pretty sweet on you.”

“Steve?” she repeats, “He’s barely said two words to me.”

“He kind of clams up around girls he likes. I think tonight he’s gonna ask you to the sock hop or the soda fountain or whatever he thinks a date is.”

Bucky’s trying not to be bitter about this. He really, really is. Trying not to be bitter about the fact that Steve’s going to be able to really take her out, when all he’s ever shared with her are dirty motel rooms and stake-out takeout and shootouts with this week’s bad guy.

Darcy narrows her eyes at him, then shakes her head and looks away.

“You’re so full of shit.”

She looks back at him and huffs, but he just raises his eyebrows at her. Darcy wrinkles her nose and turns her eyes back to the sidewalk.

The thought of her with another man makes him want to punch something, but the thought of her with _Steve_ just makes him feel sick and helpless. He knows that it’s up to her to date who she wants, but it turns his stomach to take himself out of the running.

“Do you think he’ll pin me?” she raises an eyebrow at him, the corners of her mouth ticked up in a mischievous smirk. “I bet he’ll order us a milkshake with two straws and then ask me to do the Lindy Hop with him, or whatever it is that you two old fogies like to do.”

Bucky chuckles in spite of himself. He hopes it comes off as good-natured, but he can hear how brittle it sounds. 

“We shouldn’t be mean,” she murmurs soberly, looking at her hands, “Steve’s really great.”

“He is,” Bucky nods, a little too enthusiastically.

They stand together quietly for a while, watching the already-dark sky grow darker. The rain starts to let up a little, but neither of them make a move to start walking again. Bucky’s arm is still tight around her shoulders; when she slides a hand around his waist, under his jacket, he tells himself it’s just to keep warm. 

He can feel her pull into herself; he can feel her thinking about what he just told her, about what it would be like to be with Steve.

“So,” he nudges her shoulder and she smiles, “What are you going to say when the big guy asks you to go steady?”

“Well,” Darcy sighs, “While his taste is impeccable, I just…I don’t think I’m his type.”

“Whose type do you think you are?” 

It falls out of his mouth without a thought, and he cringes.

“I dunno,” she says, a little indignantly, and looks down at her feet.

It’s selfish – it’s _so goddamn_ selfish – the little rush of relief that goes through him. Because he knows that Steve is who she deserves – the kind of guy who’s stable and (comparatively) normal. Because he knows that Steve deserves to be happy. 

“Darce,” he turns his face towards her. Her wet hair brushes his chin. “Darcy.”

She pulls back and looks up at him. Her eyes are wide; her full lips are pursed. The glasses perched on her nose are still speckled with raindrops, and Bucky curses himself for not offering up his still-dry shirttails for her to clean them with.

Even if she _is_ going to turn Steve down tonight, Bucky knows he still shouldn’t do what he knows he’s about to do. Because she’ll always be off-limits now. But if he can feel like he _has_ her, just once, no matter how brief it is, it’ll be easier to let her go.

His only free hand is made of metal, and he hates that it’ll be cold on her skin, but he cups her jaw anyway, tilting her face towards his.

His lips meet hers, and something hot erupts in his chest. When Darcy’s free arm raises, when her hand grabs the lapel of his jacket, pulling him closer while her other hand slides up his back, between his shoulder blades, Bucky feels the rumble of something huge go through him; he doesn’t know if it’s joy or lust or sheer shock that she’s so receptive, but it nearly knocks him flat.

When he feels Darcy’s tongue press against the seam of his lips, his head spins. His mouth opens against hers, and it feels like his whole body, his whole heart, is wide open and raw for her.

Bucky yanks her towards him, and she steps into his arms willingly. Her tongue slides against his. One of her arms folds around his shoulders; her fingers curl around the back of his neck. He had wanted this - to kiss her - as a last hurrah, but now that he has her warm and pressed up against him, he knows it can’t – _can’t_ – be the last time.

When he pulls back, the look on her face is shy, quiet. There’s something about this – about standing with her in the middle of a rainstorm, with the taste of her on his tongue – that’s unbearably intimate. His chest clenches; he doesn’t know how he’s going to make it through whatever happens next. 

“How long—“

“Too long,” he buries his face against the side of her neck, wrapping his arms around her back, “Too fucking long.”

She laughs into his shoulder, but her voice sounds thick, blocked. He pulls back to look at her, and her cheeks are wet.

“Christ, Lewis, are you crying?”

A well of soft, unadulterated _feeling_ rises up inside him, because she _is_. Because she'd wanted him, too. She looks up at him.

“ _No_ ,” she sniffs and tries to scoff, “No. It’s just rain. I…I have rain on me. On my face.”

He snorts a laugh and covers her mouth with his. 

“I don’t wanna go to the party,” she mutters as he moves his mouth to the side of her neck, pressing kisses into the smooth line of the tendons there. 

“You have to. It’s _your_ party.”

She shakes her head and turns her face to catch his lips with hers. 

“I just wanna do this,” she murmurs against his mouth, “for the rest of the night.”

“ _Just_ this?” he smiles and kisses her. The curve of his palms fit against her hips and tug gently, pressing their bodies together. The heat of her seeps into him, through layers of soaked fabric. “You sure?”

Darcy swallows and looks up at him. Her eyes are dark; Bucky can hear her breath hitch. She draws her lower lip through her teeth.

“Now I’m really not going to my party.”

“Yes, you are.”

Even though the rain around them dries up, leaving behind a cottony silence, even though they both know they should start walking again, they stay put. He holds her for a long time. As night falls, the temperature around them drops; but here, in the circle of her arms, everything is warm and soft.

“Don’t worry,” she murmurs against his shoulder, “I’ll let him down gently.”

Bucky’s glad she can’t see the pained look on his face. He knows he’s about to spend the next few hours trying not to look at her or touch her or think about her. And at the end of the night, instead of following Darcy back to her apartment, he’ll take Steve out for drinks, and they’ll pretend that he’s physically capable of drowning his sorrows.

Bucky’ll tell him the truth in a few weeks, when the bitter sting has faded, and he knows that Steve will take it on the chin. Hell, he’ll probably be _happy_ for him, which will only make Bucky feel more uncomfortable. They’re both too good for him.

Finally, Darcy slips out of his arms and slides her hand into his. She smiles and leads him through the rain-slicked streets to Stark Tower. As soon as they enter the lobby, Bucky knows he’ll have to relinquish his hold on her, tuck his hands into his pockets and pretend he’s never had a more-than-friendly thought towards her.

A few weeks. If she’ll still have him in a few weeks, it won’t be a secret anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

It surprised Darcy a little, when Bucky first told her that Steve liked her. But, after a few minutes of thinking about it, it wasn’t surprising at all. Not because she’d noticed Steve checking her out, but because everything – _everything_ – in her life has to be so goddamned complicated. 

It figured that she would fall in love with Bucky, her partner, because it was the most inconvenient thing she could have done. And it figured that Steve would want to ask her out, because what else could have made the whole situation even _more_ awkward.

In the few days between the day Bucky kissed her – the day she had turned down Steve and he had accepted it like a gentleman – and their departure for Atlanta, Bucky’s spent most of his time with Steve. Darcy tries to convince herself that it isn’t because he feels guilty for kissing her, but his coolness towards her whenever anyone else is around is hard to take.

But every time she starts to try to give up – to tell herself that she imagined everything she thought he felt for her – they find a moment alone together and he kisses her like his life depends on it, with his arms wrapped around her, with his hands in her hair and his body pressed tight against hers. The things he tells her when they’re alone – that he needs her, that he wants her, the way he says her name – make her go weak-kneed and silly. 

Darcy tries hard to understand that he needs time – because of the Steve thing, and because, well, that’s just how he is. But she isn’t above giving them a little push.

The rain still hasn’t let up three days later when Darcy shows up at Bucky’s Stark Tower apartment with a box of pizza in one hand and a six-pack in the other. She’s always known he lived here – because she lives on the next floor up, and because she’s made it her business to know everything about him – but she’s never actually _been_ here. 

“What’re you doing here?” he asks roughly when he opens the door and gives her a once-over.

Darcy gives him a withering look and holds up her full hands. “I’m sorry, is it not obvious?”

He rolls his eyes and steps aside; she pushes past him and strides into his living room. It’s immediately apparent that the floorplan of his apartment is the same as hers, but, while Darcy has gone out of her way to make her apartment cozy and welcoming, Bucky clearly hasn’t put forth any effort at all. She recognizes most of the furniture as the type that came with the apartment – the kind of sleek, modern pieces Pepper Potts finds fashionable – but he’s added nothing to it. The walls and hardwood floor are bare, only a single lamp lights the room, piles of newspapers litter his coffee table. 

She sees touches of (what she thinks is) Steve – a dying ficus in one corner and a stack of framed black-and-white photographs lying unhung on a windowsill. It looks like a place for eating and sleeping, not anywhere someone would call home. 

When she looks back, Bucky’s still standing at the door, eyeing the empty hallway. 

“Did anyone—“ he starts, but she cuts him off. 

“You’re so paranoid. I’m your _partner_ , Barnes. Partners can have beer and pizza. Besides,” she sets the pizza box on his coffee table, balanced on one of his newspaper piles, and digs through the messenger bag slung over her shoulder until she produces a thick manila folder, “I brought work.”

Bucky sighs and accepts defeat, and they settle in with the pizza and the briefing file on their Atlanta mission. They mostly eat and read in silence, passing back and forth occasional notes on Fury’s mission. 

No one expected them to work well together. She had heard the rumors that circulated: that he was too volatile and she was too inexperienced. It had only made her more determined to prove everyone wrong and, she thinks, they have. Their success rate rivals Steve and Natasha’s and, despite the heat they take from Fury whenever Bucky goes off script, they’ve managed to stay on his good side more often than not.

Still, for all their professionalism, it’s a struggle not to throw herself at him. That she manages to keep her hands on pizza and paperwork instead of _him_ is nothing short of a miracle.

They’re each two beers in when it catches her eye: a cardboard box shoved into a corner with the word “Bucky” written in black marker on one side. She recognizes Steve’s neat block letters.

“What’s in the box?” she asks, looking over at him.

“Stuff the SSR saved,” Bucky shrugs, “Steve gave it to me.”

“Wait, like, stuff from the ‘40s?” Darcy narrows her eyes at him, trying to force away the healthy buzz she’s under to think clearly.

Bucky pulls the top off his third beer with his metal hand.

“Dunno. Never opened it.”

Darcy gives him a long, appraising look. He knows what that look means.

“Go ahead,” he waves his hand at her and takes a swig, “Not like I can stop you.”

She grins and moves to the floor, sitting on her heels and prying open the cardboard flaps.

It’s half-empty. The first thing she grabs is a black, rectangular box. She opens it and raises her eyebrows, turning it up to show Bucky the bit of purple ribbon and gold-and-enamel heart inside.

“Fancy.”

Bucky makes a face and holds out a hand to take it from her. He plucks it out of the box and holds it up to the light.

“Must’ve gotten this for dying,” he mutters, setting it back in the box and handing it back to her. He leans back into the couch and takes a swig from his beer. Darcy watches him carefully, but he still seems like himself, so she pulls out another artifact. 

“Hey, check it out,” she says, and tosses him something dark and square.

When he turns it over in his hands, he sees that it’s a wallet – _his_ wallet, he supposes. He opens it and finds a few antiquated identification cards. The billfold is empty.

“Figures,” he shrugs and tosses it on the coffee table.

Next, Darcy pulls out a pile of khaki cotton and olive drab. _His uniform_ , she realizes, as she spreads it out on the floor. Every piece is perfectly folded – all careful creases and precise corners – and she doesn’t dare unfold it. She’s sure that it was Steve who arranged it like this, and it almost seems too sacred for her to handle. The one thing she does unfurl (accidentally) turns out to be his service coat.

She smiles and runs her fingers across the brass buttons and embroidered chevrons. Bucky’s still relaxed on the sofa, so she takes the liberty of slipping the buttons through the holes. She slides off her cardigan, drapes the jacket over her shoulders and slides her arms into the sleeves.

She’s only ever known him as he is, and for the first time she wonders who he _was_. Darcy stands and runs her hands over the jacket; it’s too big – the hem hangs down to her mid-thigh and the sleeves slide over her hands – but it’s _his_ , a part of him that she's only just met. 

“Looks good on you,” Bucky smiles and leans over to pluck at one of the lapels, “Almost fits. I was smaller back then.”

Darcy moves towards him and sets one knee on either side of his lap, pulling the bottle from his hand and setting it on a side table. Seeing these things - these carefully hidden and purposefully ignored fragments of the man he used to be - sparks something deep, primal and nameless inside her.

She runs her fingertips along his jawline, along his cheekbones and hairline. 

Darcy leans in and sighs against his cheek and tightens her arms around his shoulders. This is what she’s been craving, what she’s waited for all night: the chance to be close to him, curled around him, in his space.

Bucky winds his fingers around the jacket’s lapels. He looks up at her and wrinkles his nose. 

“Smells like mothballs.”

“It’s old,” she grins, “Like you. Old as _balls_.”

Bucky clutches his chest in mock-outrage, then smirks, pushes the jacket off her shoulders and lets it land on the floor in a slump of fabric. His hands – warm skin and cool metal – trace up her bare arms, push into her hair, skim down her neck and cup her clothed breasts. Darcy leans down and presses her mouth to his.

Bucky surges against her, wrapping his bionic arm around her waist, with his other hand spread wide and warm across her ribcage. Even though his mouth is hot and open under hers, she can tell that he’s holding himself back, just like he has been since their first kiss; there’s something off in the strained lines of his face and the way his hands skirt around the curves of her breasts and hips.

It’s drives her nuts – his reticence. What she does next, she does to shock him out of it, to push them both past another point of no return. She moves fast: breaking her mouth away from his and leaning back, grabbing the hem of her tank top and lifting it over her head, reaching behind her back to unclasp her bra and sending it, too, to the floor. 

“I—“ Bucky starts, his eyes dropping to her breasts, but Darcy takes his face in her hands and kisses him again. 

She was right, and it makes her smile against his mouth. Everything ratchets up. Bucky’s hands are suddenly everywhere: raised to cup her breasts, lowered to palm the curve of her ass, pulling her roughly against him. His hips jerk between her legs, and even through two layers of denim, she can feel the hard ridge of his erection fitted against her center.

Darcy pulls back for a moment, to catch her breath and yank up his t-shirt. Bucky lets her pull it over his shoulders and throw it to the floor. 

She pauses when she sees him drop his head against the back of the couch; he’s flushed and panting, laid out under her. The sight of him sends a shot of need through her.

“ _Fuck_ , Lewis,” he growls; he sounds dazed and punch-drunk, raking his eyes from her face, down her neck, breasts and stomach. 

“What?”

His eyes flicker up to hers. He grins and raises an eyebrow, “Nice rack.”

She rolls her eyes. “Ass.”

Darcy reaches between them and cups her palm over his fly. She can feel him straining hard against the fabric, and she can hear his breath hitch in response.

“Darcy—“ he starts, and she can tell by the tone of his voice that he’s seconds away from telling her that they should really stop, or slow down, or that she should go. She knows perfectly well that, for as flirty and cocky (so to speak), as he can be, he still thinks too damn much.

But his eyes meet hers, and all she has to say is “ _let me_.” Bucky swallows, his eyes go dark, and he shifts his hips to give her access. Darcy doesn’t waste a minute, setting to work on his belt buckle and fly, pushing the stiff denim out of the way. 

Bucky lets loose a low groan. Darcy gives her palm a wet lick, then wraps her fingers wrap around him and _pulls_. He’s hot and hard in her hand, and the feeling of it – how _much_ he wants her – makes her dizzy. 

In the course of their partnership, there have been too many times when she’s thought about this – when she’s noticed the curve of his shoulders under a thin t-shirt, or when she’s caught him staring at her chest, or hell, even when he gets a good shot in at the range. As she strokes, every hitch of his breath, every time his cock jumps in her hand, makes her think of all the nights she’s ended with her hand pressed between her legs, wishing it was his instead.

“Okay, Lew—Lewis,” he gasps and slides his hands down to tug at the button on her jeans, “Time to lose the pants.”

She brings one hand to the back of his head, sliding her fingers through his hair. She leans forward and tilts her face towards his ear. “Shut your face, Barnes.”

Bucky’s gaze shoots down, between their bodies, and the sight of her half-naked body hovering above his, the sight of his flushed cock in her hand, makes his jaw go slack and his hand slide away from her fly.

Darcy masks her sigh of relief with a moan. She’s not ready to tell him why she only wants to go this far tonight.

“Darcy. _Darcy_ ,” he murmurs against her shoulder. She’s still not used to this – hearing this mix of lust and urgency in his voice – but she likes it. 

She wraps her free arm around his shoulders, running her mouth along the hinge of his jaw, his ear, the tendons in his neck. 

“I wanted you for so long,” she murmurs, and he’s done for. A part of him feels like he’ll never get over the idea that she’s wanted _him_ as much as he’s wanted _her_. It lights him up and turns him on; it makes him want to hold her, kiss her and fuck her and forget that anything else exists.

Bucky groans and bucks against her hand, gripping her hips hard. She feels him go tense under her, then relax as he spills hot and sticky over her fingers.

“’s definitely your turn now,” he gasps; Darcy smiles and leans her head against his chest, feeling him start to soften in her hand, “Just…gimme a minute.”

Bucky brings up a hand to her head, weaving his fingers into her hair. She listens to his breathing slow as he recovers. She presses soft, lazy kisses against warm skin; she closes her eyes and lets her fingers trace the muscular ridges of his chest and stomach, covered by a fine dusting of dark hair.

“Okay,” he says at last. His bionic arm curves around her waist and his other hand grabs his pants as he starts to shift them off the couch. He’s got a whole list of things he’s going to do to her tonight, and he’s more than ready to get started. “Bedtime.”

But he freezes, and Darcy jumps, at a loud rapping against the door to his apartment.

Bucky’s face is suddenly a mask of annoyance.

“Maybe they’ll go away,” Darcy whispers into the skin at the base of his neck.

They both sit still for a long moment.

“Bucky?” Even through the door, Steve’s voice is clear as day.

“Shit _fuck_ ,” Bucky curses. Darcy can barely scramble off his lap before he’s up, too – grabbing for his shirt and throwing the service jacket from the floor back into the cardboard box.

Darcy snatches her bra, top, and cardigan from the floor and darts down the hall to his bathroom. She washes her hands, then tiptoes down the hall. Still out of sight and in the dark, she pulls her clothes back on. 

“It’s Friday night,” she hears Steve say, “Don’t we always—“

“Right,” Bucky answers, “Of course.”

There’s a shuffling as Steve steps in.

“You have company.”

“No,” Bucky says quickly. She can almost hear him backpedal. “I mean, Lewis is here. We were working. On the Atlanta thing. She’s…she’s just in the bathroom. Is that—”

“S’fine, Buck.” Darcy can hear the smile in his voice. She can hear the graciousness and kindness that Bucky seems to find so intolerable.

She sneaks into the bathroom and flushes the toilet, because it’s obvious enough that Bucky’s story needs some help.

“Hey, Cap’n,” she smiles as she walks out, giving a little mock salute.

Steve nods and smiles at her. Panic is written all over Bucky’s face, but if Steve’s harboring any resentment towards either of them, Darcy sure as hell can’t see it. He’s got a cardboard carton of beer in one hand and a DVD in the other.

“What’re we watching?” Darcy chirps.

Steve holds it up: _Thelma and Louise_. “Nat recommended it.”

Darcy snorts a laugh and flops onto Bucky’s couch, “I bet she did.”

They both stare at her for a moment – Steve with a sort of amused nonchalance and Bucky with the usual dread he has whenever the three of them are in close quarters.

She gives them a deadpan look and holds out her hands. “I’m crashing guys’ night. Let’s all just accept it and move on.”

*

Whatever Bucky _thought_ was going to happen, the next few hours pass smoothly. Steve orders an absurd amount of Chinese food, which the two of them demolish, despite the fact that Bucky’s already eaten most of the pizza Darcy brought.

When Bucky falls asleep halfway through the movie, slumping over onto Darcy’s shoulder, Steve just gives her a quiet smile and fetches a tissue to mop up the puddle of drool on her sweater.

Later, as the credits roll, Steve stops the DVD, stands and gathers his jacket.

“You headin’ out, too?” he whispers.

“I…” Darcy glances down at Bucky, still fast asleep. This isn’t exactly how she thought their evening would end. A part of her wants to tell Steve to go without her, but she knows what that would look like, and she knows what Bucky _doesn’t_ want it to look like – that he moved in on her the moment she turned Steve down. “Yeah.”

Bucky stirs when she stands up, and watches silently as Steve helps her into her coat.

“I fell asleep?” he asks. His voice is groggy and slurred.

Darcy crosses the room to put a hand on his shoulder. She tries to make it look platonic.

“You did. Must’ve had a big day,” with her back turned to Steve, she winks at him, and smiles when Bucky shoots her a warning glare in response.

The two men exchange curt, masculine farewell nods, and Steve ushers Darcy out of the apartment and to the floor’s bank of elevators. Darcy knows she’ll be waiting for an elevator to take her just a floor up, but Steve will be waiting for one to take him all the way down to the street, so he can make his way back to Brooklyn.

As they wait for their respective rides, Steve clears his throat and rocks back on his heels.

“Look,” he starts, “Don’t tell Bucky I said this—“

Darcy shoots him a skeptical look, because she doesn’t keep secrets from her partner – from _Bucky_ – even if _Captain America_ tells her to. Steve registers her raised eyebrow and continues.

“But I think he likes you. I mean,” he waves a hand by way of explanation, “ _really_ likes you.”

Darcy feels her face go slack in surprise. It hits her that being with Bucky will mean dealing with the emotional backwardness of not one, but two men.

“You don’t say.”

“Just, you know,” he scrubs at the back of his neck and looks at the carpet, “Be good to him.”

It’s an odd parallel – a few days ago, Bucky had struggled through pushing her towards Steve, and now Steve’s standing in front of her, giving her and Bucky his blessing. 

The elevator rings, and they both look up to see a downward-facing arrow illuminated. As Steve steps through the doors, Darcy holds out her hand to stop them from sliding shut.

“I will,” she tells him, and he smiles.


End file.
